Georgians and Smallpox Inoculation

Smallpox was the bane of existence in the 18th century Europe, claiming tens of thousands of lives annually and leaving hundreds of thousands seriously affected, most with disfiguring scars. Yet, inoculation has long been successfully practiced in some parts of Asia and the Caucasus; contemporaries argued that one of the reasons for why men and women from the Caucasus were renowned for their beauty was that they were inoculated as children in parts of their bodies where scars would not be seen.  Inoculation came to Europe at the beginning of the 18th century. European travelers in the Ottoman Empire frequently remarked observing or hearing about inoculation practices among the Georgians. 


In 1713, an Italian Doctor, Emanuel Timonius (Timoni), who resided in Istanbul, sent a lengthy letter describing inoculation practices in the Ottoman capital. The letter was extracted and translated for the Royal Society of London by English physician John Woodward in 1714: 

"The writer [Timonius] of this ingenious Discourse observes, in the first place, that the Circassians, Georgians, and other Asiatics, have introduced this practice of procuring the Small-pox by a sort of inoculation, for about the space of forty years, among the Turks and others at Constantinople.

That though at first the more prudent were very cautious in the use of this practice; yet the happy success it has been found to have in thousands of subjects, for these 8 years past, has now put it out of all suspicion and doubt; since the operation having been performed on persons of all ages, sexes, and different temperaments, and even in the worst constitution of the air, yet none have been found to die of it; where at the same time it was very mortal when it seized the patient the common way, of which half the affected died. This [Timonius] attests from his own observation."

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Timonius' letter was later cited by various publications and writers, including The Historical Register: Containing an Impartial Relation of All Transactions, Foreign and Domestick (1717), which noted that "the Circassianis , Georgians , and other Asiaticks , have introduc'd this Practice [inoculation] to the Ottomans," and The Philosophical Transactions (vol.5, 1731). In 1722, physician John Crawford repeated this claim in his book "The Case of Inoculating the Small-pox Consider'd":

"I shou'd think, however, the Experience of Time immemorial among the Georgians and Circallians, of forty Years at Conftantinople, where Timoni assures us it has been practic'd with happy Success, join'd to what we have had at Boston, and even among ourselves, should not seem so slender."

In 1755, the Royal Society of London sent a list of questions, prepared by Dr. Maty, to James Porter, the British ambassador in Istanbul, asking for more information on the Ottoman practice of inoculation. The following year the Royal Society of London published an interesting report based on the information supplied by James Porter. The report mentions inoculation practices among the Georgians:

"Since the reception of this memoir, Dr. Maty has received another letter from the same gentleman, in which he finds some new facts tending to clear up the accounts relating to the practice of inoculation among the Georgians. These he hopes will not be unacceptable, as they come from a person equally able, by his universal knowledge and distinguished station, to procure the best informations, and willing, for the good of mankind, to communicate them in the most obliging and candid manner.

Constantinople, May 17, 1755.

I am now to correct the report of the Capuchin concerning inoculation in Georgia. One of their physicians, a most ignorant fellow, who lives by his profession here, avers [affirms] that, among those who follow the true Georgian rites, not Romanists [Catholicism], the practice is common. It has its rife from mere superstition. He tells us, "That the tradition and religious belief of that people is that an Angel presides over that distemper, that therefore, to show their confidence in him, and to invite him to be propitious, they take a pox from the sick person, and, by a scarification, they insert it in one in health, generally between the fore-finger and thumb. It never misses its effect, and the patient always recovers. To attract the Angels good-will more effectually, they hang the patient's bed with red cloth or stuff, as a colour most agreeable to him. He has been assistant to this practice, and declares it to be common." From "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London," volume 49 (1756)

That same year, 1755, physician Charles Perry published "An Essat on the Smallpox," in which he observed:

"The Practice of Inoculating, though but of late Years introduced amongst us, and though hitherto, it is not an establish'd Thing, but is only approved and practised by, particular Parties and Sets of People; yet it brought with it from Turkey (the Country whence we received it) a high Sanction and Authority: For though the Turks don't practise it, at least but very seldom among themselves, yet amongst the Armenians, the Georgians, the Mingrelians, and the Circassians, as also among the Greeks, it has been of general Use from Time immemorial, at least from so remote a Time, that I could never justly and rightly learn when or in' what era the Practice of in commenced, or was first introduced and instituted."

Thirteen years after this publication, "The Critical Review or Annals of Literature," the famed English journal edited by Tobias Smollett and featuring articles by Samuel Johnson and David Hume, published several papers exploring the practice of inoculation. 

"The 17th paper contains a short account of the manner of inoculating the smallpox on the coast of Barbary, and at Bengal, in the East-Indies, extracted from a memoir written in Dutch, by the reverend Mr. Chais, at the Hague, by M. Maty, M.D. Sec. R.S. His is a subject of so interesting a nature to mankind, that it cannot be too much investigated. 

We accordingly find it renewed in the 20th article, which is an account of inoculation in Arabia, in a letter from Dr. Patrick Russel, physician at Aleppo, to Alexander Russell, M.D. F. R.S. preceded by a letter from Dr. Al. Russell, to the earl of Morton, F. R. S. 

We mention the universality of this practice, which extended through Arabia, and the Eastern countries, the rather as many well meaning, but misinformed Christians in Great-Britain, Ireland, and other parts of his Britannic majesty's dominions, imagine, that inoculation is a kind of nostrum; that the practice of it tempts Providence, and, in short, that it is what they call a new-fangled discovery, not warranted by Scripture or the Christian religion.

[…]

For these several years past, very few slaves have been brought from Georgia. From what I could collect among those already here, who remember any thing of their own country, inoculation was well known there: I have seen several old Georgian women, who had been inoculated, when children, in their fathers' houses.

In Armenia, the Turkoman tribes, as well as the Armenian Christians, have practiced inoculation since the memory of man, but, like the Arabs, are able to give no account of its first introduction among them…

The Jews at this place [Syria] absolutely reject inoculation; partly from scruples of a religious kind, and partly from the distrust of its success. At Bagdat [Baghdad], Bassora [Basra], and in Palestine, having acquired a more favorable opinion of an operation which they see so often performed with success, they have got the better of other scruples, and join in the practice with their neighbors.

In the different countries above-mentioned, inoculation is performed nearly in the same manner. The Arabs affirmed, that the punctures might be made indifferently in any fleshy part: those I have had occasion to examine, have all (a very few excepted) had the mark between the thumb and the forefinger. 

Some of the Georgians had been inoculated in the same part, but most of them on the forearm. 

Of the Armenians some had been inoculated in both thighs; but the greatest part (like the Arabs) bore the marks upon the hand. 

Some of the Georgian women remembered, that rags of a red color were chosen in preference for the binding up the arm, a circumstance of which I have been able to discover no trace among the Arabs."

From The Critical Review or Annals of Literature (London, 1769), pp. 81-89.

In 1796, the Encyclopædia Britannica (volume 9, p. 246) published a lengthy article on inoculation, noting practices from around the world, including among the Georgians who "insert the matter on the fore-arm... The Armenians introduce the matter on the two thighs."